tv [untitled] December 2, 2013 5:30am-6:01am PST
5:30 am
place. and police stations and armories. this is the police stables in golden gate park and public libraries. and then one at north berkeley. public hospitals. clinics and sanitary. as well as polio people did get tuberculosis. remember that counties were strapped for funds. so the wpa gave it to them. children got health care. we were headed for a national health care system. we treat things differently now. essentially, what we have of med-cal is going to be slashed
5:31 am
true. as an environmentist, i am opposed to this. they laid concrete in southern california. without which, a good deal would be washed into the ocean. the ccc and the wpa workers were trained for disaster relieve. we didn't have to rely on the national guard. these kinds of things wouldn't be as disastrous. we need a new wpa. they are walking over the sidewalks, which is wpa. this was a demonstration outside of dianne feinstein's
5:32 am
office. and demanding it not be torn down. the new deal moved in and gave rural areas water and electricity. this is one in modock county and we have cheaper electricity. and then, there were sustainable communities, people think they are discovering this at this time. this one was done in georgia. this is one in maryland green belt outside of washington d.c. this is right outside of the co-op. and then urban roads like this in the los angeles river and this is being built.
5:33 am
this is mira loma park. this is lark merced blvd. it's all made of clay. it's going to slump. these are the roads built in the oakland hills. nate, red woods. skyline. and enabled them to go up and develop the hills. the rural roads that go through the coast range. this enabled them to get their stuff to market. this is at road built by the ccc. this is a bridge. this is highway one and you won't know, except you look at the bridge and you will see
5:34 am
dates, 1938, 1939. the airstrips are ccc. and the one out at treasure island. long beach, burbank. this is oakland and the whole built line railroad was redone. 19 is a pwa project and our great amphitheatres are from that time. this is santa barbara bowl. this is the forest theater in carmel and these are ccc workers putting huge bolder. here's 6 thousand people getting ready to enjoy oklahoma
5:35 am
in that theater. big basin is a ccc project and this one, on the east river, new york. a project built where people from the lower east side could see performances and still do. our parks and recreation. almost all from them. that's the conservatory garden and i photographed that all the time. this is up at jeweliard park. i thought i would show you san francisco. i read they improved every park. i didn't believe this at first. this is the fly casting pools.
5:36 am
here was a fly casting champion ship. here it is today. it's still in use. the stables out there. they are meant so the public would have the opportunity previously only available to the elite, as it so often the case, as is with golf. like lincoln park built by the wpa. think of the experiences that people have had and the history which is embodied in them. there is daves tennis stadium. here it is, this was a tournament for inner-city youth. archery at golden gate park. our play grounds. here it is in use today.
5:37 am
this is bernal heights park. you can still see the gutters they put in there. this is buena vista parks. this is quezar park. this is mount davidson. look out for the rock. this is on telegraph park. this is stern grove. this is a little known park above candle stick. here's my friend jake, standing by a wall. this was rosy play ground.
5:38 am
they turned it into a park and it was also restored by wpa. i believe they torn down the house, which was unforgivable and the zoo is wpa. and here's the murals inside the mother's building. the marina sea walls and great aquatic park. the palace of fine arts. we wouldn't have and a little further in, lake merit, this pier. alva rado park and then, some of you my recognize this. the berkeley rose garden. did it have to be this
5:39 am
beautiful. finally, i'm going to wrap up. san francisco is rich in the various kinds of arts projects. we have a fabulous collection of stuff here. there were four components. there was visual arts, federal theater, federal musics and federal writers. they employed many people. this is excellent to show the work. the visual arts project. it was especially important in san francisco because of dieggo rivera and radicalizing it. this is the coit towers. this was done under cw a.
5:40 am
1934. the wpa wasn't in existence. this is the very first of the relieve projects. harry hopkins said, they have to eat too. the artists should dig ditches like everybody else. this is antonio brinko. millions of americans got to hear live music for the first time. this is the federal theater project. this is maxine albroro. it's been destroyed and one of my favorites done by helen bruten.
5:41 am
it's to remind us, while i was looking at these projects, they employed 42 percent women. it's very unusual in the art world. and then of course, in san francisco, benny lafono. we had the first and the last of the new deal. coit tower is the first. it is i think, one of the best in the country. it shows san francisco's history and that of human civilization shown through the eyes of labor. these are things that happened in san francisco's history.
5:42 am
lynchings. again, coit tower, shows you the stock market dropping. something people weren't used to seeing. and a business many being held up. and in george washington high school, the farther of our country pointing the pioneers west as they walk over a dead indian. most of the art is not controversial. most of the artists celebrates local produce. this is one of the most extraordinary murals i have seen. at a tuberculosis cemetery. they also painted a mural in san francisco. finally, it's on the outside of the berkeley community theater.
5:43 am
all people brought together through the arts. unfortunately, it was not the last. the war came along. and anton refurgie. there were controversial. there were tried in washington in 1953. he had a panel showing the arts and sciences. there is luther burbank and jack london. there was a thing on the side. it says federal art project and
5:44 am
has beginning and ending date. that is a wall which becomes a tomb stone. the artists themselves are becoming ghosts. that's what he's doing there. joseph danish. head of the projects, it is it was a wonderful time that he woke up every morning wondering how long it would last. they were being paid to produce public art. well, what happened of course is the war. the war came along. and roosevelt could see it coming. so, very few people understand the new deal segways into war. they beefed up the military
5:45 am
bases like fort mason. my 1943, they are all killed. the war did what the new deal couldn't do, full employment. there were reports, it's still with mind numbing statistic. we have to rely on other people to do it. the these projects enriched the lives of millions of people and does so today all the time. i have become aware of it, but very few people are. i have also become aware
5:46 am
extraordinary people. here's a dedication of roosevelt. on the left, who painted the murals in the social security building with her husband and steph an kennedy. it's been a privilege to meet these people. just recently, i found this statue of roosevelt. is over looks oslow harbor. they revere roosevelt, because of what they learned from the new deal about how to build a civil society. they didn't get rid of it, they expanded it. just like other scandinavian
5:47 am
5:48 am
across america, cities and towns, homes and businesses all depend upon one basic resource. modern civilization and life itself would be impossible without it. woman: okay, so today, we're going to look at how do we get our water? narrator: and today, it's a matter of simply turning on the tap. so often, we forget about the value of water. water is a commodity that is essential to life. 100 years ago, it would have been hard to imagine turning on the tap water. and now, it's an expectation. narrator: over 300 million people live in the united states. and each person uses an average of 100 gallons of water every day.
5:49 am
man: what it takes to actually make clean water is somewhat a mystery to most customers. woman: so how does water get from the river into your house, or here at school? woman: somebody has to bring that water to us, and somebody has to take it away when we're finished with it. man: the water infrastructure is vital for disease protection, fire protection, basic sanitation, economic development, and for our quality of life. man: you just can't visualize all the assets that are under our feet. we have about two million miles of pipe in this nation. if you're walking around in an urban area, you're probably stepping on a pipe. man: our grandparents paid for, and put in for the first time, these large distribution systems. woman: and in many cases, it's not been touched since. man: we're at a critical turning point. much of that infrastructure is wearing out.
5:50 am
narrator: our water infrastructure is made up of complex, underground systems that function continuously. these 10 locations take a look at the history, design, and challenges of our water infrastructure systems. each one represents a small part of what's at stake on a national scale. but understanding the challenges starts with understanding the value of the three basic systems. generations of americans have never experienced living
5:51 am
without a constant, unlimited supply of water delivered straight to the tap, or without their waste flushed immediately away. i think people often forget -- because, you know, water utilities have made it very convenient for people to get water -- how important this is. man: in terms of water supply, wastewater, stormwater development -- these are independent technologies. but what came first, most often, was a water supply system. the basic system is essentially the same as we used back in the 19th century. and in some cases, some of the same pipes. grusheski: philadelphia was the first american city to develop a water system and to take on as a municipal responsibility water delivery to all of its citizens. when william penn laid out the city,
5:52 am
he actually chose a spot of land that had a lot of groundwater. however, by 1730, 30,000 people lived within the first seven blocks of philadelphia, next to the delaware river. well, 30,000 people caused filth in the city and polluted their water sources. the groundwater was not potable. and in one year, 1/6 of the population died of yellow fever. now, they didn't know at the time that yellow fever was carried by mosquitoes. but the health issue was major in that first movement to build a water system. narrator: so they set out to find the cleanest source of water. although the majority of philadelphia's water now comes from the delaware river, early engineers found that development along the waterfront was causing pollution. so their search led them to the nearby schuylkill river. philadelphia developed technologies
5:53 am
to pump water from the river into the city. these technologies established engineering concepts that are still the basis for our water systems today. europeans flocked here. it was a destination point to see the new world technology. when charles dickens visited us in 1840, he was truly blown away by high water pressure on the fourth floor of the hotel he was staying in. nowhere in europe had he experienced that. this technology was doing something to support the life and the growth of the city. philadelphia, throughout the 19th century, was the major industrial city of the united states. all of these industries used water from this system. and it served as a prototype for many american cities, including pittsburgh and new york. man: new york city went to philadelphia and said, "you know, we're thinking of developing
5:54 am
a hudson river water supply -- what do you suggest we do?" and they said, "we've had "a lot of problems on the schuylkill. "don't go to the hudson river. go to the upland and work by gravity." and that's what new york city did. they first went to the hudson highlands, but 150 years later, it went to the delaware highlands. and really diverted the water that normally went to philadelphia to new york city. i don't think they anticipated that. narrator: the majority of new york city's drinking water comes from watersheds in upstate new york. a watershed is the area of land where water from rain or snow melt drains downhill into a body of water. mountains act as a funnel to feed rivers and lakes. and in this case, reservoirs. in the new york city system,
5:55 am
water is collected and stored in 19 reservoirs, which can hold more than a year's supply -- over 580 billion gallons of water. almost all of the system is fed by gravity, without the use of energy-consuming pumps. valves open to regulate the flow into the 85-mile-long delaware aqueduct -- the longest tunnel in the world. at hillview reservoir... the water is partitioned into another giant tunnel system. where it travels deep below manhattan.
5:56 am
the pressure built up by gravity from the mountains pushes the water upwards toward the surface through vertical shafts. these shafts feed the water mains of each neighborhood, which branch into smaller pipes below the streets... feeding into buildings and houses, into the plumbing, and finally, after its long journey, to our faucets. providing water to homes and industry is a monumental task, requiring immense infrastructure. but once the water is delivered and used, it must also be taken away. man: it's important that the waste generated by any society not be left around.
5:57 am
cholera, and other diseases and problems, have been spread, because people wound up living in filth. even the ancients understood that you couldn't have the sewage where you lived. and the easiest thing to do was transport it to another spot -- by water, or a river. most of the first sewer systems were on the east coast of the united states, often in places that already had developed a citywide water supply system. sullivan: in 1630, boston was basically three mountains, there were very steep hills. waste would run down quickly and dump into the harbor. and the tide would carry most of it away. well, this worked well for a while. the problem was, as boston wanted to expand, it started filling in the mudflats.
5:58 am
the water could come rushing down the hill, it would hit the flat area and slow down. at high tide, it couldn't get out at all. it got so bad that the city took over, 'cause the city has a responsibility to protect its citizens. boston built the first modern sewer system in the united states. ours was completed between 1877 and 1884. with this wonderful new sewer system, we were taking our filth and moving it out to the ocean. of course, all of this was untreated. in the 1960s, we were still pumping all of our sewage out to moon island, untreated. we would get swimmers here, never knowing, in the middle of summer, why you would have a cold. well, we were swimming in diluted sewage. melosi: the major way to deal with pollution,
5:59 am
at least until early into the 20th century, was through the process of dilution. the assumption was that the capacity of rivers and streams, and even the seas, allowed for certain levels of pollution that eventually would purify themself. as we get later into the 20th century, it becomes clear that the volumes of waste made dilution unworkable as a single solution. and so treatment became the ways in which we deal with pollution. narrator: to protect public health, starting in the 1950s and '60s, there was a push to put in wastewater treatment plants across the united states. today, with evolving technologies, the waste travels through multiple stages of treatment, removing tons of solids... settling out microscopic particles, and introducing bacteria that consume and decompose the toxic material.
6:00 am
in some plants, the water is further disinfected through the use of ultraviolet light or ozonation. these plants cost millions of dollars to construct, operate, and maintain. in population centers like los angeles, the scope of the task is staggering. the hyperion wastewater treatment plant serves four million people. it processes 350 million gallons of sewage and removes 500 tons of solids daily. after treatment at hyperion, what was once raw sewage is clean enough to release into santa monica bay. other cities and towns release treated wastewater, or effluent, into local rivers, lakes, and streams. as it flows downstream, additional cities may capture it for drinking water,
113 Views
IN COLLECTIONS
SFGTV2: San Francisco Government Television Television Archive Television Archive News Search ServiceUploaded by TV Archive on